"Our religious belief usurps the place of our sensations, our imaginations of our judgment. We no longer look to actions, trace their consequences, and then deduce the rule; we first make the rule, and then, right or wrong, force the action to square with it"
About this Quote
Wright is coming for the mental shortcut that feels like virtue: letting belief do the work of perception. Her verb choice, "usurps", frames religion not as comfort but as a coup inside the mind, overthrowing sensation (what you actually experience), imagination (the range of what you can picture), and judgment (the faculty that weighs and revises). The target is a culture where morality is treated as preloaded software: rules arrive first, and reality is dragged behind them like a reluctant dog on a leash.
The structure matters. She sketches a clean, almost scientific method of ethics: watch actions, trace consequences, then derive a rule. It is Enlightenment empiricism translated into moral life, and it carries the implicit insult that much of public piety is anti-intellectual in the most practical way: it refuses to learn. The line "right or wrong" is the scalpel. She concedes that the rule might be correct, but indicts the process anyway, because a rule held above evidence becomes immune to correction. That immunity is the real danger; it turns conscience into stubbornness.
Context sharpens the charge. Wright, a radical reformer in the early American republic, lived amid revivalist fervor and a politics saturated with religious authority. Her critique doubles as an activist tactic: if reform is going to happen (on slavery, on women's autonomy, on education), people must be persuaded to evaluate outcomes rather than obey inherited doctrine. The subtext is blunt: a society that reverse-engineers reality to fit belief will call its cruelty "principle" and its fear "faith."
The structure matters. She sketches a clean, almost scientific method of ethics: watch actions, trace consequences, then derive a rule. It is Enlightenment empiricism translated into moral life, and it carries the implicit insult that much of public piety is anti-intellectual in the most practical way: it refuses to learn. The line "right or wrong" is the scalpel. She concedes that the rule might be correct, but indicts the process anyway, because a rule held above evidence becomes immune to correction. That immunity is the real danger; it turns conscience into stubbornness.
Context sharpens the charge. Wright, a radical reformer in the early American republic, lived amid revivalist fervor and a politics saturated with religious authority. Her critique doubles as an activist tactic: if reform is going to happen (on slavery, on women's autonomy, on education), people must be persuaded to evaluate outcomes rather than obey inherited doctrine. The subtext is blunt: a society that reverse-engineers reality to fit belief will call its cruelty "principle" and its fear "faith."
Quote Details
| Topic | Reason & Logic |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
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